In Romans 7:15, the Apostle Paul wrote, “For that which I do, I allow not: for what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that do I.” Many people have pondered over these verses, but everyone who has tried to break a bad habit knows exactly what he’s talking about. There seems to be a part of us that knows what we should do, but that part just gets swept away when making decisions in our everyday lives. Why do these contradictions exist within ourselves? The psychology of Carl G. Jung provides some answers.

Jungian psychology proposes a multilevel structure of the mind, or the “psyche.” The ego is the basis of our waking consciousness and the expression of our personality. Unfortunately, our ego gets bombarded by family and social trauma, emotional pain results, and we try to escape it. Hiding emotional pain results in what Jung called the “shadow.” It is part of our mind, but is unconscious. When we are unable to recognize and deal with our trauma, this is what is described by Jung as “repression” and it can erupt as anxiety attacks, depression, and violence. This is the part of the mind that the Paul complains he can’t control, in my opinion. In Paul’s terms, this is the body of flesh that serves sin. In Jungian terms, it is the repressed shadow of the ego, as well as other repressed parts of the unconscious, that cause the problems and not the flesh, as such.

Carl Jung was not a theologian and was adamant about not being one. He was insistent about using empirical data collected from patients and studying myths and stories from many cultures around the world. From this data, Jung concluded that we all have a connection to the collective unconscious of all humans past and present. In addition to the collective unconscious, we also have in our unconscious, a connection to realms beyond space and time that is nothing less than a connection to “God” which Jung referred to as the Self. In my interpretation, this is the part of the mind that served the law of God which Paul tried to follow.

In describing his conversion, Paul wrote, “To reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.” (Gal. 1:16, italics mine) Paul did not say that God “put” his son in me, but “revealed” his son in me. This difference has enormous implications because it suggests that the “Son” is within all of us in a deeper part of our mind. It is a part of human nature and is equivalent to the Self as proposed by Jung.

Before his conversion, Paul was not aware of the Self. In Jungian terms, Paul was suffering from ego inflation. In his own mind, he was the right hand of God punishing the heretics. He knew the letter of the law and thought he was fulfilling it. As described by Edward Edinger in Ego and Archetype, when the ego eclipses, or identifies with, the Self, the ego thinks it is the Self and can justify anything no matter how horrendous in the name of “God.” This amounts to extreme narcissism and is the opposite of loving one’s self in a healthy way.

In the course of a normal life we all suffer from ego inflation at times, but we get reprimanded by our parents, experience the limits of physical reality, or our conscience inflicts guilt. This is part of the growing up process. When we refuse to pay attention to our lessons, however, we run the risk of walling ourselves off from reality and fall into a pit of self-delusion of ego inflation and actually think we are “God.” What we don’t like about ourselves, we mentally project onto other people and we declare them to be our enemies. This is the process that creates bullies, dictators, and religious fanatics with intentions of inquisitions.

Paul went far down this road and was in serious trouble. Except for the grace of God goes all of us. The Self in our unconscious has its own will, much to the annoyance of the ego. Paul was introduced to the Self on the road to Damascus and was knocked off his high horse. This was the beginning of the realization of the Self by the ego in Paul which is essential for self-reflection and compassion. (Edinger, Ego and Archetype)

The ego is not inherently evil, and it is highly esteemed by the Self; but there needs to be a right relationship where the ego and the Self work together. The thing that makes the difference is the mirror of awareness. Earlier in Romans 7:7, Paul wrote that it was the law that made him aware of his sin. In a Jungian sense, we need to become aware of our shadow and come to terms with all of the trauma we have been through. Being emotionally traumatized is not evil, but trying to hide from our trauma can make us do evil things.

As Paul Levy explains in Dispelling Wetiko, evil is a transpersonal force that is an essential part of the universe. It is a force that challenges and drives us to evolve. In Jungian terms, evil is an archetype that can control people, but when we recognize our Self we can weaken that control by being able to recognize when our ego is going off the rails and becoming an egomaniac.

In Rom. 7:17, Paul wrote, “Now it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.” His intention is no longer centered only in his ego even though it still gives him fits. Because he is aware of his ego’s propensity to sin, he is no longer responsible for it and he identifies with the Self which is the revealed Son within.

If Paul’s identification with the Self results in forgiveness because he no longer identifies with his ego, is this not the basis of forgiveness of sin by faith? If so, we can conclude that it is not a mental assent to a literal, historical Jesus that saves us. In contrast, real faith is to find the higher Self within that saves us from drowning in the darkness of our own disconnected ego.

Paul was once totally identified with his ego but realized there was a higher Self within. This realization, in Paul’s terms, resulted in the renewing of his mind. (Rom. 12:2) In Christian terms, he had become a new creation. In Jungian terms, he was achieving individuation where the ego and the Self work together to achieve a higher level of consciousness.

The net result of the ego and the Self working together is that we can love our self in a way that is not narcissistic. We understand that “In Him we move and live and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) We’re all one and there’s no distinction between male or female, or bond or free. We are all one in the Self. True self-love results in compassion and wholeness, not narcissism and division.

In addition to loving ourselves through understanding our connection with other people, Jung was very emphatic that when the ego and the Self work together we will reconnect to nature. In The Earth has a Soul, Jung stressed that we are a product of nature and we have lost our way from our root in nature as the result of the literalist interpretations of religion and modern technology. It was these literalist interpretations that concluded nature was evil because Adam “fell.” It was the church that turned us away from nature saying it was the place of the devil. This is the source of the worst repression of the Self, according to Jung. It is because we have been taught by the church to reject the very source from which we came that we have become self-hating and self-murdering societies. We have become so focused in our ego that we are destroying our own source, which is nature.

Repressing our connections to nature has throughout history resulted in the energy of the unconscious welling up and driving us to mass suicide and war. This is where confession and repentance becomes essential. With the help of the Self, the ego can recognize its vanity and its sins confessed and acknowledged. This is what self-reflection does. Our whole natural ecology and social stability are at the verge of collapse because we can’t see and acknowledge our ego’s vanity. We are being taken over by the archetype of evil on a national and global basis. By connecting through our collective minds and recognizing our ego and higher Self, as Paul did, we may be able to save our civilization and planet from being destroyed by greed.
 
References

Edinger, Edward F.; Ego and Archetype; Shambhala Publications, Inc.; 1972.
……….The Aion Lectures–Exploring the Self in C.G Jung’s Aion; Inner City Books; 1996.
……….The Creation of Consciousness; Inner City Books; 1984.
 
Jung, C. G.; Memories, Dreams, and Reflections; Random House; 1961.
……….Psychology and Religion; Yale University Press; 1966.
 
Levy, Paul; Dispelling Wetiko–Breaking the Curse of Evil; North Atlantic Books; 2013.
 
Sabrina; Meredith; The Earth has a Soul–C.G. Jung on Nature, Technology & Modern Life; North Atlantic Books; 2002.